Recovery
by NerfHerder101
Summary: It would probably hurt, if they weren't already dead. The Team's thoughts post-Failsafe. Slight Supermartian/Spitfire.
1. Wally West

KID FLASH/WALLY WEST

The world is burning. And Wally runs just fast enough to believe he avoids it.

When Wally thinks of his life, he thinks in shades. Blurs of color that he sped by.

There is a starting point – one he does not really remember, and then there is the moment he began running.

And _oh god_ she's gone.

He cares far too much. It is an acute pain, imagining not seeing her again, not seeing any of them again. It is one thing to fling himself at danger and another to watch all those around him disappear into it.

But it's not real.

He's faster than _this, _this fake pain.

When Wally runs, everything slows down and with the tips of his fingers he can touch everyone before they blink.

But Artemis has always somehow been one step ahead of him.

Wally's feet are frozen. His heart stutters, his lungs compress.

Where Artemis was, is now dust. Obliterated. There are now thousands of specks of Artemis intermingling with his oxygen supply.

Breathing in Artemis. Breathing out Wally. Bits and pieces of her drift in the wind, scraping against his teeth, washing his tongue and burning down his throat.

Until there's nothing left but rage and anger and something he can't quite describe, but's it's hollow and cold.

Then Wally can move again.

He forgets, so it's not imagination, not play and she's gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.

Like Alice down the hole to Wonderland.

Atoms spread out in the arctic air, immortalized in the patterns of snow.

Suddenly, this is Wally's reality. Because he was late, late, late...

Robin is his best friend.

And they died together. Like Romeo and Juliet – but, that's for girl's - so, more like Achilles and Patroclus. Great warriors in great battles dying great deaths causing everyone great sorrow.

But not for great reasons.

Because Wally remembers, now, and it's not real. And all those feeling aren't either. Wally is a scientist to the bitter end. And _oh how bitter_ it tastes.

So his "extreme reaction" isn't real And his denial isn't real. (There's nothing to deny he tells himself.) And this is logical and this is true and this is science. Because a simulation, by definition, is a mere imitation. (Sometimes he looks at his Uncle and feels like an imitation himself.)

Wally wakes up third and watches as Robin rises from his slumber, his eyes following the upward movement of his torso. Then gazes at Artemis as she lies there - waiting. He hears M'gann's sobs, but all he can see now is Artemis. Artemis in one piece (not _pieces)_. All he can hear is Artemis breathing. _Breathe in Artemis. Breathe out Artemis. _Wally doesn't believe in magic, but he chants hope over and over in his mind like some great, mystic spell. Hoping that as long as he keeps saying it, she will continue to be there.

She wakes up and no one really speaks.

And for one moment Wally believes.

Wally sees her legs give out and before anyone can move he is there – grabbing her as if his life depended on it. For a second he thinks it does. She doesn't push away and he doesn't let go.

Batman debriefs them and they all walk away.

M'gann is guided out of the room by her Uncle and Superboy hesitates before following.

Aqualad ambles slowly, almost painfully, outside the room – burdened by the weight of a wold that never was.

Artemis looks him in the eye, and jerks her head away immediately. Wally wonders what she saw.

Robin jabs him in the stomach and grins a see you later (not goodbye this time).

His eyes follow the team as they exit into the zeta tubes.

Which are transporters – not disintegrators.

This, of course, doesn't stop him from stutter stepping as Artemis walks through.

Later, maybe Wally practices more. (_Hoping he's never late again_) Maybe he watches everyone more. Listens more.

And, so what, if he moves a little closer to Artemis during meetings, and follows her a little closer during missions. ("_Ow – watch where you're stepping Twinkle Toes_" )

Because Wally West will run - like he always has - as soon as he figures out which direction to go.


	2. M'gann M'orzz

notes: so this began in a sociology class if you can't tell.

notes2: it also hasn't been edited - at all - which you probably can tell.

forewarning: It's all post-Failsafe (spoilers), I wrote this directly after the episode and then abandoned it. Therefore, it's not consistent with some of the discoveries in Black Canary's therapy sessions. Hopefully, there will be a chapter for each character, but I only finished M'gann, Connor, and Wally.

disclaimer: Young Justice is not mine. If it was episode 19 would have aired in December. And there would be no 3 month hiatuses. $%#^#$#.

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><p><strong>The Grief-Work Theory<strong>

The basic goal is to accept the reality of death. thereby, liberating oneself from the strong attachment to the "lost object". In which M'gann wonders who's dead and who's lost and which hurts less so she can join them.

1. Grief is an adaptive response to loss

It wasn't her fault they said.

Her reaction was normal. Freaked out, panicked, terrorized, hysterical, crazy. The only thing different was _her_. And Megan has never felt more like a failure.

She couldn't handle it.

Megan thinks this is what is wrong with her. She's still getting used to loss, so naïve and new, and all the others are far past grief. Far ahead of her. And that is a distance that can only be covered with bricks of blood and sorrow, but she's not sure she can or even wants to build this road - let alone walk down it.

Their eyes meet across Megan's sobs and they all wonder if they haven't fallen off the edge. There is some precipice here and it does lead somewhere. Maybe they fell off.

And they saw _the end_.

2. The work of grief is difficult and time-consuming

Long ago, there was an alien girl. She saw her world split into colors green-white. Then she stowed away to blue-green Earth, and found the shades (**rainbow**) in it's people and fell in hot-pink love. Maybe, that's why it hurt when the world turned solid-red.

It's been two weeks since M'gann's seen the golden sun. The **dark-black** coldness of her room is far more fitting.

And_ oh god_ does she miss it.

M'gann will spend two more weeks alone before Superboy comes in one night and curls up next to her.

Her skin is green and cold. His arms are familiar and warm.

He whispers _I'm Sorry_. And it's all M'gann can do to let him bind her into this world.

3. Grief-work is carried out through a long series of confrontations with the reality of the loss

There is a sense of abandonment when they die. An unimaginable pain when she dies – when her Uncle kills her? Kills her **dead...**kills her **alive?**

Because she wakes up. Didn't she? Is she?

There is Sadness and Guilt. Then Pain and Panic. Artemis dies and she loses her mind. Connor dies and she feels like her heart has ripped into a thousand pieces.

"_I like your shirt."_

Everyone dies and then she dies: **dead-alive**.

4. The process is complicated by the survivor's resistance to letting go of the attachment

It's not real.

It's not real.

She remembers now. Telling herself over and over – the _real _truth.

They are fighting and people are dying – but _not really_.

This isn't _real_ity.

She knows this, _real_izes this.

It's not real.

It's not real.

Her organs twist with each video clip of another city decimated, she looks at the team. They will win this exercise and it will all be okay. Real or not. It doesn't matter because they are The Good Guys, so, they always win. period?

It's not real.

It's not real.

If there's one thing she' s learned on Earth it is that you may lie to yourself because there's no one to stop you. On Mars, they are linked, always and forever, no secrets unless you crumble off the edges of society. M'gann's mind works differently and her skin is green and she's different and she still sees them, hallucinations of her team in the dark deep-blood-red dead.

Then she wakes up.

Then they are** l**ooking at her, always not blaming her. **Dead-alive**.

And she's quite sure she has no idea which is real.

5. Failure results in continued misery and dysfunction

She can feel their desire, far more potently now that they are dead-alive. There was a muted connection in the simulation – like they were there, but not **real**ly. Everyone is scared. Because she hasn't emerged from her room in weeks. Because they died. Because they lived. And, right now, everyone desperately needs to know that they are more than surviving, but continuing.

Their thoughts buzz around, white noise in the background of M'gann's horror, and her head can only fall back, hitting the soft mattress, and reintegrate her mind into the network of nightmares.

And M'gann thinks that maybe she's still alive (and not _dead-alive)_, just lost – but it doesn't really matter because it all hurts.

She's lost her mind and torn her heart.

But she can't afford failure.

Not again.

(So maybe it's a good thing she's lost a little bit of herself and maybe it's a good thing parts of her died because her old self couldn't handle this. But she can.)

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><p>endnotes: next up - Wally or Superboy?<p> 


End file.
